


Coffee, deer?

by mydomaindopeman



Category: EXO (Band), SHINee
Genre: Coffee Shops, Japan, Japanese, M/M, Meet-Cute, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:57:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6232411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydomaindopeman/pseuds/mydomaindopeman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Dedicated to B - I love you as much as you're going to love this xo</p><p>To everyone else who suffers through this - don't take any of it seriously. またね〜</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Coffee to go

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to B - I love you as much as you're going to love this xo
> 
> To everyone else who suffers through this - don't take any of it seriously. またね〜

_Five days into my four-week vacation in Japan and I’m already bored out of my mind. There’s only so much you can do during rainy season before the weather really gets to you... My hotel room is a happy alternative to a manga shop full of sticky looking twenty-something-year-old men, which is just about all I can find in this neighbourhood. If I wait it out, the rain should subside by the end of the month. That’s only a week away so I reckon I can sit tight until then. I may regain my motivation when the rain clouds disappear._

 

Luhan sat at the desk of his ‘business hotel’ style room, staring through the warm rain into the depths of Akihabara. It was 8:42am and he had just finished his convenience store breakfast. The empty wrapper of a melon bread bun sat dejected at his elbow as he nonchalantly played with the straw of his empty iced coffee cup. He realised that he still felt just as tired as he did upon waking. Concluding that the cheap coffee had had little effect on his mood, he decided to visit the coffee shop across the road from his hotel in attempt to perk himself up a little. He slipped a transparent waterproof jacket over his shirt and jean combo before grabbing his shoulder bag and leaving his pitifully small room.

 

The coffee shop was a mere three minute walk from Luhan’s hotel room, including wait time for the traffic light controlled crossing that connected the two parallel pedestrian walkways. While waiting for the green man, he couldn’t help but listen to the heated conversation between two school kids standing next to him, of which he understood virtually nothing. Of the three languages in which he was fluent, Japanese was not one of them. Mandarin Chinese, Korean and English were all within Luhan’s range of linguistic understanding. Regrettably, he had never felt compelled to learn the language of this small Asian island. Aside from a brief session on hiragana and katakana, forced upon him by a Japanese friend of his prior to his trip to Japan, Luhan had no experience in studying the Japanese language. After a moment of self loathing as a result of his failure to understand the meaningless chatter of teenagers, Luhan crossed the street and walked into the café before him.

 

The first thing Luhan noticed upon entering the café was the intense aroma of coffee beans, which he readily took into his nostrils with pleasure after having been subjected to that shitty convenience store coffee at breakfast. The second thing he noticed was the guy perched on one of the tall bar stools, which were neatly lined up along a table that spanned the length of the coffee shop. The man looked young (likely in his mid-twenties) yet he had an air of intimidating sophistication surrounding him. One foot stood flat on the floor, the other was supported by the foot rest of the stool. He leaned into the table slightly as he sipped on the frappuccino held in his right hand. Simultaneously, he seemed completely engrossed in what appears to be a notebook, held in his left hand and titled “テミン・ノート”. Luhan attempted to make sense of these katakana characters but, after failing to recall the correct pronunciations fast enough, he realigned his focus and inspected the hot drinks menu board, which hung on the wall behind the cashier. Even with this new stimulus, Luhan couldn't help but wish the title of the man’s notebook had been written in Chinese characters, maybe then – he immediately cut off his line of thought. Why should he care what this stranger was reading? Even if he could make sense of the title, he certainly would not have any success in reading the contents, nor was he in any way capable of making conversation with the reader, who Luhan decided must have been Japanese. He quickly ordered the strongest coffee on the menu to go.

 

* * *

 

That night, Luhan dreamt of nothing but the guy at the coffee shop with the frappuccino and the mysterious Japanese notebook. As soon as he woke up, he resolved to return to the coffee shop at the same time that day in search of the object of his fantasies. The cycle of the previous morning repeated itself. Luhan ate his convenience store melon bread and drank green tea to replace the ineffectual iced coffee of yesterday. There would be no sense in having two coffees in one morning. Just before 9am, Luhan arrived at the coffee shop across the road from his hotel. For a moment, he could not bring himself to look in the direction of the stool on which the man from yesterday morning was perched. He could not bear the disappointment of finding it empty or inhabited by somebody else. It was not until he was almost at the front of the queue for the cashier that he chanced a glance. Luhan’s heart jolted within his chest. He was there. Flustered, Luhan messed up his order and ended up leaving the coffee shop moments later with a small latte and the insatiable urge to learn Japanese.

 

The used book store around the corner from the café was his next destination. It took a while for him to find the Japanese textbooks; the book store was large, spanning three floors of around 8 aisles each. Eventually he found the only section signposted in English: _Education: Japanese Language_. He picked up as many beginner level books as he could carry and left the store after making this large, spontaneous purchase. After stocking up on enough convenience store melon bread to last him three days, Luhan returned to his hotel room.


	2. Deer on my mind

_So today is another no show, huh. Stupid brain – WHY DO YOU CARE? I don’t know this guy! I’ve never even spoken to him… So why am I thinking about him so much? I produced enough likely reasons for his absence yesterday to excuse his failure to visit the café… But two days in a row? I bet he’s never going to come back. I need to get him out of my head. Agh - but I can’t stop thinking about what we did together in my dream last night! Stupid brain. Stupid Taemin. Stupid._

Taemin half sat, half stood at his regular bar stool in the coffee shop around the corner from his university. This was his regular café, despite there being one on campus and plenty of other coffee shops on the walk between his dorm and his morning classes. Nowhere else could make a frappuccino quite as well as this place though, and he struggled to function during the day without one. After re-reading his notes for first period, Taemin shoved his Japanese notebook into his satchel, still a little disheartened at the lack of eye candy present in the coffee shop that morning. Reading Chinese characters had never been one of Taemin’s strengths and so he had resolved to learn as many as possible during his semester abroad in Tokyo, while taking conversational classes in Japanese language. It was only his second week in Japan and already he had mastered over 100 characters. Mornings with coffee and kanji; this new approach was clearly working. However, his last two revision sessions had been less fruitful than usual. Ignoring this, Taemin made an international call to his mother back in Korea. He spoke to her as he left the coffee shop and began his short walk to campus.

 

* * *

 

 _Ok, my mind truly is playing tricks on me. Was that him walking past my window on the phone right now? He had a frappuccino too, right?_ _Logically, it could have been him, as he clearly visits this neighbourhood around the same time every day to visit the coffee shop. But maybe it’s a little too convenient that he would be walking past my hotel room window? “Get out of my head already!” …Is what I would have said had I not already committed myself to learning the basics of Japanese with the sole intention of asking this guy out on a date. One more day. I’ll have the confidence to introduce myself to him tomorrow._

Luhan’s desk was cluttered with open textbooks, various items of stationary and more than a few empty melon bread wrappers. Having memorised what he assumed would be enough katakana characters to be able to read the cover of the coffee shop guy’s notebook, Luhan was feeling confident. His plan was to approach this stranger tomorrow morning. Luhan would introduce himself in Japanese and see how the guy would respond. Spontaneity was working for Luhan so far, so maybe this could work. He continued to study throughout the day, taking regular breaks in order to fantasize about the man that passed by his window earlier in the day.


End file.
